


For Her

by thaliaarche



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: A Unified Theory of Undertaker, Anime-Inspired, F/M, Hopefully Canon-Compliant through Chapter 105, Human Experimentation, Pre-Canon, fan speculation, manga continuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4824461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Undertaker get his scars? Why is he interested in Vincent and Ciel? What's the purpose of his Bizarre Dolls? Why does he love laughter so very, very much?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Her

**Author's Note:**

> A unified(ish) theory of Undertaker. I sincerely hope this is canon-compliant so far, but I admit that my understanding of how souls, brains, and Cinematic Records work in the Kuroshitsuji universe is less than complete. Please let me know if you find any errors!

She loved his laugh most of all. High, scratchy, near-hysterical, it contrasted sharply with his speaking voice, which was low and smooth as oil. He had sewn in these flexible new vocal cords recently, cutting them from one of the corpses in his mortuary; the collar of his undertaker’s outfit mostly covered the stitches. After so many experiments in fixing and rearranging his body, he was now hardly recognizable, and obviously not human.

Claudia had met him at the most solemn of occasions, when Cedric Rose slipped her roses from the coffin’s bouquet, and, in the stifling quiet of the cathedral, she had burst out giggling. Laughter became love, and love became life with Vincent’s birth— an illegitimate birth, but only proper reapers could know that, and proper reapers no longer associated with Mr. Rose. Then, as always happened when humans were concerned, Claudia and Cedric’s love soon ended with a funeral.

Cedric sat in his shop, gazing at the casket he had prepared for her, smoothing its velvet folds, still holding his silver scissors. He had already snipped off one of her curls to tuck safely away in one more locket, preparing to consign her to a few years of memories and move on.

Yet when he looked down, his fingers had twisted her hair into a looping infinity sign.

He looked back at her body and knew he needed to keep . . . something more. Her eyes were a lovely sapphire blue, but he liked his own green ones better. Her hands were small and delicate, but his long, black-nailed, pianist’s fingers were more to his taste. Her neck? No, he’d just replaced his. Her spine? No . . .

Suddenly, his throat seized with a strange wish to sob, for he had never loved Claudia for physical reasons. It was her soul he wanted, yet he could never take it for himself; God knows he had tried that enough in the past. Her witty, incisive mind was lost to him forever.

Was it?

He couldn’t yet resurrect her and retie her soul to her physical self. He intended to learn how someday, but no, he couldn’t do without her until then. Indeed, she might not even be operable when the time came— while her Cinematic Record was safe in his possession, reaped with the scythe he had stolen for himself a decade or so ago, the brain that anchored those memories in her physical form was trapped in her lifeless, fragile body, where it was vulnerable to injury and decay and rot. In contrast, his own brain was blessed with all the resilience of a Shinigami. His memories were secure within his self-healing cranial folds, regardless of whether they were protected by his near-impenetrable skull. Really, his skull’s hardiness was now a pointless vestige of his human days, unless he could find a better use for it.

With a hand, he brushed back her long tresses and then his own. He took up his scythe and . . .

\---

He was “Cedric Rose” no longer. “Cedric-Rose-Claudia-Phantomhive” was unwieldy, so he donned the name of his profession and was “Undertaker” from that day on. Cedric’s soul was not quite his own, either, for the memories of her brain were smoothly inserted into his Cinematic Record, the moment he sawed open his skull and replaced his brain with hers, keeping Claudia’s memories safe until the day he could restore her to life.

A scar remained, like a circlet tipped askew across his face, suggesting that he had been torn in two. Yet he lived on with her as one whole, now viewing those idyllic days together from both their perspectives, now sifting through her memories of the Queen’s Watchdog, now wishing to hear himself laugh as often as possible— for her.

****  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired largely by Episode 18 of Season 1 (anime spoilers ahead). That episode made some revelations about Undertaker (that he's an ex-Shinigami, that he's actually rather good-looking, etc.) that were then totally and completely confirmed by the manga. The same episode also contained one of the more inexplicable plot twists of the anime— the fusion of Vincent and Rachel's souls into one body with a facial scar that closely resembles Undertaker's. By itself, that reveal seems rather out-of-place, in my opinion. But what if it's actually another spoiler about Undertaker, one that will be addressed by the manga in the future? I suspect that Undertaker has added parts of other people into himself, so Ciel's grandparents have been fused together in manga canon (like Ciel's parents in the anime). My best guess as to the mechanics behind this fusion is "brain swap," but I'm pretty sure Ms. Toboso has something more sophisticated in mind.
> 
> Other sources of inspiration include this lovely page: http://www.kuroshitsuji.org/103/05/. Clearly, the German Shinigami find Ciel's ancestors interesting, specifically Claudia, Cedric, and/or Vincent. Now, isn't it interesting how Cedric Rose's birthdates are so carefully hidden (along with all the information on Ciel's sibling, cough, cough)? My guess is that Cedric Rose lived and died before Claudia was even born, so it would be obvious to the Shinigami that Vincent Phantomhive's father had to be a supernatural creature. Throw in the fact that the Victorians associated roses with death and that Undertaker's been drawn with roses more than once (e.g.- http://www.kuroshitsuji.org/60/11/ and http://www.kuroshitsuji.org/54/02/), and things start to get really interesting.
> 
> Yikes, my headcanon's complicated, but I hope you enjoyed this little story nonetheless. If you enjoy unusual Kuro fan theories, you might also like to check out my other works. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Edited to add: You can also find me at [thaliaarche.tumblr.com](https://thaliaarche.tumblr.com/)!


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